Fusing fact and fiction: Placemaking through film tours in Edinburgh

Abstract

The current article focuses on the cultural practice of four film tours in Edinburgh, Scotland, analysing how film tours like these contribute to more general placemaking processes. Prior research has shown how film tours have become a staple of the tourist consumption of many contemporary cities. Building on these studies, the current article focuses explicitly on one of the defining features of these tours, namely the fictional character of their central topic. More particularly, this study examines how film tours are built up around a presumed conflation of imagined and material space. It argues that film tours are forms of cultural ‘work’ in which fictional plotlines from cinema are integrated into and used to revitalize notions of place. Through these practices, cinematic fiction eventually becomes part of what is experienced as the ‘true core’ of Edinburgh.